5.3.09

FIRA(Canada)






The Steel Company of Canada( Stelco).... sold out to USS ( United States Steel) a few years ago...not sure why was it that we Canadians figured the Americans could run the company better than we or was there an investment of capital anticipated to modernize this aging facility?
Same what later....somehow.... the Government ( Province of Ontario ) kept this business running with the infusion of 100 Million Dollars , a loan or a grant by Ontario.

Whatever happened to the watchdog
FIRA
Foreign Investment Review Agency
This Federal agency was set up under The Trudeau Liberals to avoid fiasco's by foreign takeover situations.
Stelco has just been shut down.., mothballed, who knows if this former Canadian Steel Mill will ever produce it's wide range of quality steel products again.
That leaves Dofasco, apparently this outfit too was sold to foreign control.I believe the other steel mill of note, Algoma is long gone.

Some ( many) years ago I was purchasing agent of a metals, mostly steel distributor ( the company was called A.C.Leslie Co. This firm was a metals warehouse, over 100 years in business)..
I also worked as Purchasing Agent for a time for another large volume slitting operation (cut large rolls of steel coils into smaller ones, about 300 tons a day.
The reason I state my background is merely to indicate that I have some idea as to what type of steel products these mills were producing, bars, structural and flat rolled, sheet & plate as well as rails and construction beams. A couple of other steel producing running mills were Burlington Steel and Dosco, Dominion Steel & Coal..

NOW...would be a good time to revive this industry...we need steel to rebuild the rapidly crumbling infrastructure, even concrete bridges and buildings require massive amounts of steel reinforcement structures. I have already commented on a previous blog on railway and rail-link improvements..but hey...the two railways as well ( CN & CP) have ended up under foreign control. If the railways are in the hands of people who are only looking for a return on their investmet, don't look for any significant improvements or modern addition to the existing lines any time soon...

4 comments:

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garbage

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